Worms Blast

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A different take on annnelid mayhem.

By Rick Sanchez & Tal Blevins

Worms...they're cute, they're comical, and they're deadly. Well, at least these worms are. The Worms series has held a dear place in my heart for years. There's just something endearing about combining adorable little Annelids with weapons of mass destruction. There was a time around the office when we would all gang up on Vinny in our almost daily after-lunch Worms bouts and make him cry. Ah, sweet memories. With the latest Worms game -- Worms Blast -- Team 17 has decided to take a radical turn away from their turn-based, kill-'em-all approach and take Worms into a whole new direction.

Worms Blast is a real mix of genres. It's part puzzler, part strategy (at least in the two-player mode) and part action. The core of the game is very similar to Bust-A-Move , where you have to hit colored blocks with like colored ammo to make them disappear before they reach the bottom of the screen and crush you to death. Worms Blast includes several ways to play. The main single-player game is the puzzle mode, where you travel around a map going through 60 different puzzle challenges. Tournament mode is a collection of Worms Blast mini-games where you can compete in timed challenges such as target shooting and timed line removal. There is also a versus mode where you can compete against your friends or AI characters in three different game types.

Although similar to Bust-A-Move , the objectives in Worms Blast aren't necessarily as cut-and-dry, as there are a number of different puzzle types. While the game focuses on removing colored blocks, sometimes you may have to catch 15 stars that are trapped within the blocks in a given amount of time. Other times you may have to take out the targets that are embedded in the blocks. Still other puzzles see you running away from block-infused "snakes" that rattle across the screen. While puzzle variety sounds nice, unfortunately this is a downfall of the game in many cases as some of the puzzles ideas aren't as well thought-out as others, making the game disjointed and lacking cohesion.

Going head-to-head has always been one of the most entertaining parts of the Worms series, so it's no surprise that the real fun comes in the versus mode. As Worms Blast is primarily a puzzle game, there's not nearly as much direct combat as the other Worms games, but you can lob an occasional shot over to your rival's area and bonk them on the head, or spawn a mine in the middle of their tiny pond as an explosive distraction. In my favorite mode, "Tide Trial," you can alter your opponent's water level in hopes of ramming them into the encroaching blocks. This is where the real lasting appeal came from the game, and even playing against the computer in versus mode was more enjoyable than the puzzle or tournament modes.

Like the other Worms games, Worms Blast includes the same control scheme where you pick your weapon, change the angle of attack, and hold down the fire button to set the power. The only problem is, since Worm's Blast is a race against the clock, this control system isn't nearly as suited to a real-time puzzle game as it was to the slower-paced Worms strategy games, and an instant turn-around feature is a much needed improvement that was absent from the game. There's just no way to get to some of the falling targets fast enough in some of the challenges since turning your characters takes a lot of time.

Speaking of characters, many of the familiar faces make an appearance in the game, including Boggy B, Chuck, and Calvin the sheep. As you would expect, the characters have the same cartoonish charm and look from the previous games. The backgrounds are colorful and cartoonish as well, blending into the Worms style well. However, the animations are short and simple, and there's really not much to them. There are also noticeable broken pieces in the outline of the characters, causing them to shimmer a bit on-screen.

Worms Blast tries to be so much, but ultimately falls short of many of its goals. Because of its emphasis on fast action and loose puzzle design, hard core puzzle gamers will probably not find the game compelling, and traditional Worms fans will take a while to adjust to the sudden change in direction in the series. Worms Blast is a very different Worms game that is going to have a harder time finding an audience. Still, it is one of the best puzzle games to come out on the Mac in a long time.

The Mac port of the game is top notch. It runs in either OS 9 or OS X, and has pretty modest system requirements (a PPC 333 or better) so most any owner of a modern Mac will be able to jump in and play.